Upgrade cheap beer with new ‘beer drops’

Buffalo News

By Samantha Christmann, News Staff Reporter

April 8, 2016

A Kenmore company wants to help you gussy up your cheap beer.

Mad Hops makes Flavored Brew Drops, designed to be squirted into inexpensive, mass-produced beers to make them taste more like craft beer. The idea is to make low-quality beer more palatable, without breaking the bank.

The product retails for $4.95 and has enough drops to flavor 18 12-ounce beers.

It’s similar to products like MiO, which are used to flavor water and add caffeine or vitamins without adding a lot of calories. But instead, Mad Hops is designed to add flavor, color and aroma to make a discount, canned lager taste more like a craft beer brewed in small, artisanal batches.

Product flavors include Pale Ale, Cherry Wheat, Irish Porter, Mexican Lime, Wild Blueberry and Apple Amber. Ingredients include hop oils, bittering, malts and other flavorings.

Ingredients are sourced from Michigan, New York State and the Midwest. The product is bottled and packaged in Florida. The company is based in Kenmore and its warehouse and fulfillment center are also in Western New York.

The company has already formulated and produced the product. It has launched a Kickstarter campaign Thursday to fund a full-scale production run.